According to Pliny, men who visited the shrine of the Aphrodite at Knidos on the island of Cos could not contain themselves. This nude, by the Greek master Praxiteles, was initially rejected by the people who commissioned it because of its provocative nakedness: the community of Knidos bought it and it became a popular tourist attraction.

Pliny says one man was driven so wild he tried to have sex with the marble statue. “A stain,” says the Roman author drily, “bears witness to his lust.” And he was not the first man to fall in love with a statue.

Agesander, Athenodoros, and Polydoros of Rhodes, Laocoon and his sons, from Rome, Italy,
early first century CE. Marble, height 7’.

Seated boxer, from Rome, Italy, ca. 100 - 50 BCE. Bronze, 4' 2" high.

The Seated Boxer was found buried deep between the foundation walls of what appears to be a private residence and a public bath, along with another unrelated figural sculpture. Each were buried in sifted sand, and the boxer was on top of a rare (in Rome) Doric capital.

"By placing the statues in this manner between the foundation walls, before filling up the space between the walls, the deposition was staged as part of the construction of the complex. The special significance attached to this potentially ritualised marking of the construction is indicated by the special value of the statues themselves, as well as the deliberate use of the capital and the burial with sand or fine earth. This allows us to draw two important conclusions. First of all, the statues were not buried to hide them from any kind of imminent danger; they were rather deposited carefully during the construction of the building. Secondly, our dating of the foundation walls by aterminus antequem (latest possible date) of ca. 200 CE suggests that the deposition took place in a period much earlier than has long been assumed." - Elon D. Heymans

The Seated Boxer at time of discovery in 1885 on the south slope of the Quirinal Hill in Rome, possibly from the remains of the Baths of Constantine.